


nex

by handydandynotebook



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Abusive Relationships, Allergies, Arson, Child Abuse, Dark Crack, Domestic Violence, F/M, Fucked Up, Gen, Gore, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Murder, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:28:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27788278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handydandynotebook/pseuds/handydandynotebook
Summary: Five times Susan Hargrove kills her husband and one time she possibly doesn't.(some times go better than others)
Relationships: Neil Hargrove/Susan Hargrove
Comments: 16
Kudos: 18





	nex

**Author's Note:**

> have i overplayed my dead!neil hand? prolly. but idgaf bc i'm still horny for killer!susan. 
> 
> ig these are all micro snippets from different verses. no plot or anything tho, p much just your standard milfy murder porn.
> 
> edit: fuck i forgot the numbers. added them now.
> 
> edited 12-01-20, fixed some typos and added a line i'd been uncertain abt before.

(ūnus)

Susan weeds her garden in the backyard while Neil cleans the gutters, standing on the very top rung of the ladder you’re not actually supposed to stand on. He’s wobbling up there, grumbles every now and then as he scrapes the gunk out. 

This is exactly why Susan had wanted to spring for the twenty-footer but Neil insisted upon the fifteen-footer. 

“Forgive my wife,” he’d said to the sales associate at the hardware store, cutting her off mid-ask about the twenty-footer. “She forgets herself.” 

He’d patted her on the head like a dog and they’d brought the fifteen-footer home in the truck. Susan looks up at him from where she’s knelt in the flowerbed below and takes some satisfaction in watching him wobble up there, stretching on the balls of his feet. It is in this moment she realizes something. 

There are no neighbors outside. 

If Susan did something she weren’t meant to do, the only witnesses would be the garden gnomes upon their toadstools. 

She may never have another chance. 

Susan briskly springs to her feet and launches herself at the ladder, slamming her shoulder into the side rail. Pain explodes through the joint in a white-hot burst. She suspects she’s going to have a hell of a bruise. One more to add to the collection of many hidden beneath her worn yard clothes. 

Neil lets out a shout as the ladder capsizes. It ends in an abrupt crack when he hits the ground. Susan trots over and peers down at him. His head’s twisted at at angle no head is meant to twist. Blessedly he’s facedown, so she doesn’t have to see whatever expression he’s wearing. 

Susan will call an ambulance. In due time. There is something else she shall accomplish first. 

Susan tucks her garden gnomes under her arms and marches to the front yard in a determined stride. Neil had long ago confined her ornaments to the backyard. He threw out her pink flamingos before the move without even asking, purposely broke her gazing ball and had the gall to blame it on Billy even though she’d seen the turquoise chips on the soles of his work boots that very same night when he’d had her scrub them. 

The garden gnomes Neil thankfully hadn’t destroyed, but he always told Susan he’d be a dead man before she put “those tasteless, tacky things” on display in the front yard. Well, he’s a dead man now. 

Susan plants her gnomes in the front yard for all the neighborhood to see, one on either side of the thriving yuccas. 

She steps back to admire her work and ignores the pain ebbing at her shoulder. Her gnomes grin at her and Susan swears she can almost see glee glinting in their painted teeth. She flashes her own to grin happily back at them. 

(duo)

Sabotaging the brakes in Neil’s truck isn’t as hard as Susan thinks it’s going to be. The manual is right there in the glove compartment, showing her where everything is. The diagrams are a tad confusing at first but after careful study and rereading, she’s confident she can find the brake lines. 

And she does. After everyone else has gone to bed, Susan slips out of the house in her floral nightgown and the bunny slippers Neil guffawed at and pinched her hard on the rump for wearing. 

“Look at you,” he’d jeered, something nasty in it. “A grown woman in fuzzy pink bunny slippers. Even your daughter’s too old for those.” 

But they’d actually been a gift from Max and Susan found them rather cute. More than cute, they’re warm, and they keep her toes toasty while she wiggles underneath Neil’s truck with her flashlight in her mouth and garden shears in her hand. 

In the morning, she gives her husband one last blowjob before she makes him eggs and hash browns for breakfast, bats her eyes and smiles with all of her teeth. 

Susan has a pleasant half-day Saturday shift at the office, making outbound calls and filing papers. Practices a mournful face in the mirror on her bathroom break, heart fluttering with the hope her husband will be dead by the time she gets home. He really could be. He’d had plans to go to the hardware store.

Sure enough, the truck is missing from the driveway. Susan steps out of her prim kitten heels and shuts the front door behind her, humming a chipper tune all the way to the kitchen. 

Billy’s there, leaning against the refrigerator door as he pokes around inside. 

“Afternoon,” she greets lightly. “If you’re hungry, I could make you something. We’ve got fresh lunchmeat.” 

“I’m not an invalid, I can make my own damn sandwich,” he snorts, gruff as he slams the fridge shut so hard Susan hears something rattle inside. 

“…I was going to make one for myself, just thought I could fix you one while I was at it if you were hungry.” Susan purses her lips. 

Billy swallows and picks at the painted shell of the turtle magnet displaying Max’s latest aced science test. There’s a guilty flicker in his eyes and Susan can tell he feels a bit bad for snapping. That’s the kind of thing he feels bad for sometimes now, but she isn’t really upset by it. 

He’s still hurting, Susan knows. More now than he was even, the oral painkillers probably don’t hold a candle to the morphine drip. She actually rather expects the snarling and the bristling. Recovering from Starcourt hasn’t been an easy thing for him. It’s painful. It’s frustrating. Doesn’t help that his only reprieve from Neil as of late has been doctor’s appointments. Susan suspects she won’t be the only one relieved to have him gone. 

“Anyway, Billy.” She flaps her hand. “Where’s your father? Did he run out to the hardware store?” 

“Yeah. Took Max with him since I’m not supposed to lift shit.” 

Susan freezes, awash in arctic ice water. 

“Neil to-took Max with him? In the t-truck?” 

“Pfft, lazy asshole always wants somebody else to be his damn pack mule…Susan? Shit, Susan, what’s wrong?” 

(trēs)

Susan helps Max pack, emptying her drawers and stuffing her sleeping bag with clothes. 

“Geez, Mom.” Her lips tuck down into a small, puzzled frown. “I don’t need all this for one night at the Sinclair’s.” 

Susan pauses. There’s no one in the hallway but she shuts Max’s door and closes the vent in the wall just in case. 

“Uh…Mom?” 

Susan swipes her tongue over her lips and takes Max’s hands in hers. 

“I wanted you to spend the night at the Sinclair’s so you’d be safe while I pack up myself and get my own things in order.” 

Max’s gaze illuminates with understanding, lightbulb bright as her mouth pops open. 

“We’re running away.” 

“Yes…we’re running away. I’ll call later tonight and say there’s been a family emergency and that I’m coming to pick you up.” 

Max blinks slowly as she takes it all in. “What about Billy?” 

Susan had considered this herself. “He doesn’t know. We won’t be bringing him.” 

Max chews her lip. “We’re just going to leave him with Neil?” 

“Don’t worry about that.” 

“But—“ 

“Maxine.” Susan holds up a hand and gives her a sharp look. “Now is not the time to argue with me.” 

After loading up her stuffed overnight bag and equally stuffed sleeping bag, Susan gets her purse and watches as Max flings herself at Billy. 

“The hell’s this?” he narrows his eyes as she locks her arms around his waist. 

Max doesn’t answer him. She gives him a tight squeeze and releases, sprinting off to the car. Billy stares after her, strange look on his face as he scratches at his neck. 

“You’re going out tonight, right?” Susan prompts him, smiling warily. “Friday night. Big party night for you rambunctious youngsters, hm?” 

Billy whips his attention to her and his whole face screws up. “Neil’s not home yet, so why are you talking to me?” 

_Because I don’t want to kill you,_ she thinks but dares not say. 

“I just think you should go out tonight, that’s all. Have some fun.” 

With that, Susan leaves, drops Max off at the Sinclair’s. Neil knows Max has a sleepover, but he’s under the impression she’ll be spending the night with another girl. Her little friend Eileen— no, not Eileen but something like that…Ellen, maybe? Something with an E. 

But Maybe-Ellen is a cop’s kid, the chief’s kid. Max doesn’t need to be spending time around any police, especially not tonight. 

Susan’s relieved to see the Camaro gone when she returns home. The Camaro’s gone but Neil’s truck is back. Susan makes dinner for two with pie for dessert and when she doesn’t eat any of her own, she claims it’s because of the new diet she’s on. Neil had been warning her about watching her weight, hadn’t he. 

He’d nodded in approval but in all actuality, Susan had laced the saccharine cherry filling with a box worth of crushed up Benadryl. It isn’t long before Neil’s snoring in the bedroom like a bear in hibernation and Susan’s emptying the liquor cabinet all over the house. 

She barricades the bedroom door with the ottoman and several kitchen chairs in the unlikely event her husband should awaken. Saturates the furniture with gasoline from the garage and lights a match. 

Susan calls the Sinclair’s to inform them of a family emergency and assures them not to worry, although, yes, she will have to pick up Max. Flames engulf the hallway behind her. An inferno of heat roars at her back. If someone were looking from the outside in, perhaps peering through the window, Susan supposes she’d look something like a demoness silhouetted against Hell’s blazing gates. 

In all truth she’s nothing but a weary, nervous woman who’s done the only thing she felt she could do. 

(quattuor)

Neil slaps Max in front of Susan for the very first time on a Wednesday afternoon. He doesn’t like the short haircut she came home with, gets all fired up and spits that it makes her look like a dyke. It was bad enough his son embarrassed him time and time again by getting into brawls and acting like a hoodlum. He didn’t need a daughter who tarnished his reputation looking like some fuckin’ she-fag. 

It is the very first time he slaps Max _in front of Susan_ but Susan will come to suspect it isn’t the first time he’s ever slapped her. Because as she’ll later get out of a tearful Max, she’d cut her hair so short in the first place to keep Neil from yanking on it. 

The very first time Neil slaps Max before her very eyes, Susan tugs her daughter behind her and slaps him right back. It’s one thing when it’s Billy. It’s horrible when it’s Billy, yes, but Billy isn’t hers. Max is. Susan slaps him with everything she’s got, watches her handprint blare stoplight red on his cheek. 

Neil breaks her wrist for it. The look on Max's face is far worse than the searing flare of pain. Neil apologizes to Max with stuffed animals and comic books. Susan expects jewelry or perfume, maybe flowers. For awhile he doesn’t actually get her anything. Her sin is greater than Max’s, after all. She dared to strike back. 

But when the cast comes off Susan is forgiven and apologized to in the same go, with the most beautiful bouquet bursting with flowers of all shapes, sizes, and colors. It’s perhaps the loveliest apology she’s ever received, this bounty of roses and tulips and carnations and more in the most elegant stained-glass vase. 

Susan kisses him sweetly and sprinkles the petals with granulated sugar when his back is turned. She leaves her beautiful bouquet on the backyard picnic table. 

“I want them to get good sunlight,” she tells Neil. “I’ll bring them in later.” 

Susan watches her flowers carefully. She doesn’t know enough things about bees to be a keeper, but there are a few things she does know. Bees are attracted to the color blue. Bees are attracted to sugar. Bees can cause an anaphylactic reaction in approximately three percent of the adult population, and Neil is part of that population. 

Susan watches her flowers carefully and when the time comes, she taps Neil on the shoulder. She likes to think it’s destiny that he’s chosen to wear a blue shirt today. 

“Dear, could you bring my flowers in for me? That vase is a tad heavy and my wrist is still a little stiff.” She massages it for emphasis, smiling apologetically. 

Neil grunts but he obliges her. Susan watches through the window as he picks up the vase and not one, not two, but three bees buzz free from the thicket of petals. He hastily drops the vase. It crashes to the picnic table and shatters, disturbing the rest of the bees who’d followed the smell of the sugar. 

Susan giggles like a schoolgirl as her husband panics, wildly swatting his hands to and fro. She knows he’s been stung when he jumps, sees the alarm shimmer in his eyes before they begin to swell shut. It’s remarkable how quickly it happens. 

How it takes no time at all for the hives to break out ruddy on his flesh, for his lips to puff out like a frightened fugu fish. 

Susan steps onto the back porch, phone in hand. 

“Having trouble, honey?” she calls out. 

Neil’s clawing at his throat, makes some unintelligible noises between ratty wheezes of breath. 

“I’m sorry, I can’t understand you,” she calls out cheerfully. “I think your tongue is swelling up.” 

Neil awkwardly stumbles toward her, waving one hand at her while the other continues to claw at his throat. Small furrows tear under the desperate scratching of his blunt fingernails. 

“Oh, you want me to call 9-1-1?” Susan wiggles the phone tauntingly in her hand. “Don’t worry, honey, I will! I’m just going to wait until you stop breathing!” 

(quīnque)

“Billy took Max out for ice cream,” Susan entices in the kitchen, twirling like a dancer in her lacy white teddy. 

That’s all it takes. Neil’s already half-hard before he’s hoisting her up on the countertop. She thinks that’s what takes him the rest of the way there, her breasts in his face as he picks her up like the big strong man he is. Her breasts in his face as he puts her right where he wants her to be, moves her thighs apart with his tough calloused hands. 

Susan wraps her legs around his waist, sucks his tongue as he plunges inside. She combs one set of fingers through his hair while her other reaches for the cedar knife block to her left. 

He’s still inside for the first few stabs. His blood washes hot over Susan’s skin, soaks through the dove white lace and stains it ruby. 

It’s the best sex she’s had in years. 

(addere ūnus) 

Susan slips back into the kitchen with the axe in her hand. She readies herself to slay her husband in his bed when the sound of footsteps down the hall make her breath catch in her throat. They’re heavy. Too heavy to be Max’s and Billy isn’t here, so they must be Neil’s. 

He was sound asleep when she’d left him but he must’ve woke up and suddenly Susan’s mind is a whirlwind of panic. If he catches her in the kitchen with an axe, he will know, he’ll know and he’ll— 

It’s now or never. 

Susan moves swiftly and presses herself flat to the wall at the mouth of the hallway. When the steps get close enough, she swings out. She feels the blade drive into meat, _oh,_ she does, it riddles all through her arms as a revolting noise splits the air. She wrenches it free with an effort and a gasp, swings it again with everything she has, feet leaving the floor. 

There’s an encore of that revolting noise, almost like the sound of a tenderizer hitting a juicy steak. Susan wrenches back, hot splatter spraying her forearms. There’s a yelp. 

There’s a yelp and Susan almost drops the axe in her shock because that yelp is male and it’s familiar, but it’s definitely not Neil. She realizes she smells marijuana and her heart turns to stone. 

Dread floods over Susan as she steps away from the wall and turns to what she’s done. Billy’s knees knock together as he presses his hands against the gashes in his bare torso. His efforts do little to stem the tide oozing through his fingers. Where the skin separates Susan can see something like viscera, some glistening membrane or another and she’s so horrified, she drops the axe. 

“What are you doing here?” she quavers out. “You weren’t home, I— you, you went out.” 

Billy takes a precarious stumble and gropes at the wall for support, leaving wide swatches of blood. His hand knocks into a picture frame and it tumbles from the wall, lands on the carpet beside the widening puddle. His wounds cascade and for the first time he actually looks at Susan. 

“I d-didn’t know you came back,” Susan stammers, scrapes her teeth over her quivering lip. “I— I didn’t expect to see you until Monday.” 

Billy gawks at her as if she’s a space alien and recoils when Susan reaches for him. She doesn’t even know what she means to do, maybe steady him or staunch the bleeding. Billy lurches away from her with a breathy noise of pain, sinks slowly to the floor, one arm around his gushing stomach and the other still flailing for traction on the wall. 

“Fuck,” comes out watery between his lips. "Jesus, what the fuck..." 

Susan has a choice to make. She could help him. She could call an ambulance and press her hands over his, over that gruesome peek of wet membrane. She could get a thick towel to soak up all that red and try to keep him conscious until help arrives. 

Or Susan could finish what she started. She could treat her stepson as unfortunate collateral damage and carry on. She could pick the axe up from the floor and step over Billy, bleeding, on her way to butcher his father. 

She can’t count on having time to do both. 

**Author's Note:**

> apparently my unchanging neil headcanons are as follows: he likes cold peanut butter, he is allergic to bees, he fluctuates between insulting and praising susan's appearance depending on what he wants from/for her. will sometimes grab skin around susan's stomach, twist/pinch it, and gibe at her about potential weight gain. then will proceed to mock her for exercising to those 80s aerobics tapes.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Forged In Blood](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27876290) by [lucdarling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucdarling/pseuds/lucdarling)




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